Overview of the Blue Hawaiian Big Island Spectacular Helicopter Tour
The Blue Hawaiian Big Island Spectacular is a helicopter tour departing from the Big Island of Hawaii that combines volcanic geology with dramatic landscape views. The tour operates in the morning (this flight departed at 8 a.m.) and focuses on two distinct volcanic zones: active volcanoes during the first segment and older, dormant volcanoes during the return. While the video's flight was unable to reach Kīlauea due to cloud cover, the pilot skillfully redirected to Hualālai, showcasing equally impressive volcanic formations, fissure lines, and lava flows dating back to 1801 and 1859. The waterfall landing package—the premium option chosen in the video—includes a descent into a lush valley to land near a cascading waterfall, offering a stark contrast to the volcanic terrain.
This experience suits travelers seeking both education and adventure, particularly those interested in geology, volcanology, or simply wanting an unforgettable aerial perspective of Hawaii's raw natural power. It's ideal for milestone celebrations (the video features honeymooners and anniversary travelers) and works well for visitors with a moderate tolerance for small-aircraft flying and a genuine curiosity about how volcanic systems work. The tour's mix of technical explanation and stunning visuals makes it engaging whether you're a science enthusiast or simply after an iconic bucket-list experience.
Key Moments
Key Sights and Experiences on This Aerial Route
- Two types of Hawaiian lava—smooth pahoehoe and rough ʻaʻā—side by side on the same flow, with visible lava tubes and sinkholes explaining the mechanics of volcanic eruption and collapse
- Fissure lines on Hualālai volcano, explained as "zippers" on the mountainside where lava historically erupted hundreds of feet into the air, including formations comparable to the 2018 fissure eruptions that occurred in populated areas
- Seismic monitoring equipment (solar panels, seismographs, tilt meters, and gas sensors) deployed across the volcano to track eruption risk and magma chamber movement
- The summit crater and volcanic conduit at the peak of Hualālai, described by the pilot as otherworldly terrain resembling another planet
- Kohala, the island's oldest volcano, featuring deep valleys and a dramatic transition from the dry leeward side to the lush, green windward landscape
- The waterfall landing in a secluded valley—a moment the video creators compare to the Apple TV screensaver and Jurassic Park scenery—where the helicopter touches down surrounded by cascading water and tropical vegetation
Essential Details Before Booking Your Flight
- Duration: The full tour spans approximately 90 minutes from introduction through landing and return (the video shows departure to return totaling 18 minutes of flight time, though pre-flight briefing and post-flight procedures extend the total outing)
- Timing and weather flexibility: Morning departures are standard (8 a.m. in this case); however, cloud cover can force route changes—the pilot cannot guarantee Kīlauea views if conditions don't permit. Plan for alternative volcanic sites as equally worthwhile substitutes
- Safety briefing required: All passengers watch a safety video before boarding and receive a pre-flight briefing from the pilot covering emergency procedures and flight path details
- Pilot expertise: This tour benefits from a knowledgeable, geologically trained pilot who explains volcanic formation, fissure behavior, lava types, and monitoring systems—a level of educational detail that enhances the experience significantly
- What to bring: The video does not specify luggage or clothing restrictions, but aerial tours typically recommend avoiding loose items and wearing layers as cabin temperatures vary with altitude
- Package options: Blue Hawaiian offers the standard Big Island Spectacular and an upgraded waterfall landing package; the landing version adds a descent into a remote valley, considerably extending the immersive experience
Frequently Asked Questions About This Helicopter Tour
Will we definitely see Kīlauea volcano?
No. The tour is designed to feature Kīlauea during the first segment, but as the video demonstrates, cloud cover and weather conditions can prevent safe flight over the summit. Blue Hawaiian's pilots will redirect to other volcanic sites—in this case, Hualālai—offering equally compelling views of fissures, lava flows, and volcanic geology. Both volcanoes are active geological features worth experiencing.
What makes the waterfall landing package special?
The waterfall landing takes you beyond aerial observation into a remote valley where the helicopter touches down near a cascading waterfall surrounded by lush tropical vegetation. This transforms the tour from a fly-over experience into an immersive landing, allowing you to step out, feel the environment, and spend time in a location most visitors never access by foot. It's substantially more intimate than the standard flight-only option.
How much time do you spend at the waterfall?
The video does not specify the exact duration of the ground stop at the waterfall. However, the waterfall landing is shown as a distinct phase of the tour, clearly separated from the flight segments, suggesting a meaningful time window to experience the site before returning to the aircraft.
Is this tour suitable for nervous fliers?
The video shows passengers expressing some nervousness ("I'm so nervous" at 0:31), yet they complete the tour safely and declare it "an absolute bucket list experience" they would repeat "in a heartbeat." The relatively slow pace of the flight, clear educational narration, and experienced pilot presence appear to help anxious passengers feel secure. If you're a nervous flier, arriving well-rested and focusing on the geological commentary may ease your mind.
Can you choose not to land at the waterfall?
The video confirms that Blue Hawaiian offers both a standard tour and an optional waterfall landing package, implying you can book the scenic flight without the landing. The choice depends on your comfort level with helicopters and your budget, as the landing package is positioned as a premium upgrade.
- DJI Phantom drone (for aerial photography and videography mentioned in the channel's equipment list)
- Sony a6700 camera (
Browse our big island guides →Key Terms
- Pahoehoe lava
- A smooth, silvery type of lava that can flow at extremely high speeds (up to 55 miles per hour) and often forms visible tubes and holes in the ground.
- ʻAʻā lava
- A rough, dark-textured type of lava that rolls down mountainsides in chunks like gravel and moves much more slowly than pahoehoe.
- Fissure
- A long crack or line in a volcano's side where lava suddenly erupts, sometimes shooting hundreds of feet into the air in a fountain-like formation.
- Magma chamber
- An underground reservoir of molten rock beneath a volcano that feeds eruptions and can be tracked using seismic equipment to predict volcanic activity.
- Lava tube
- A tunnel-like cavity left in hardened lava after molten rock has drained away, appearing as holes or hollow sections visible from above.
Sources: Pahoehoe lava · ʻAʻā lava · Fissure · Magma chamber · Lava tube — definitions cross-referenced with Wikipedia
Video by Abbie and Wiebe on YouTube. If you enjoyed it, please subscribe to their channel and show your support for the great video.
Description
We are on the Big Island of Hawaii and we are flying the Big Island Spectacular with Blue Hawaiian. The tour included sites of volcanos and stunning waterfalls! We chose the waterfall landing package and we had an amazing time!
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00:00 Intro
00:37 Getting on board
02:35 Lava!
03:25 No Kilauea
04:23 Hualalai
10:40 Kohala
13:17 Waterfall landing
15:50 Return flight
17:36 Back at hotelVideo transcript for “Bucket list experience! Blue Hawaiian Big Island Spectacular Helicopter Tour with Waterfall Landing” Accessibility
A full written transcript of this video, provided for accessibility. Select any timestamp to jump the video to that moment.
[Music] the waterfall on the apple tv this is insane [Music] oh my god this is awesome [Music]
i'm so nervous [Music] and abby william hello welcome welcome all right uh my name is marco we are la for enemy big island spectacular sunday september 12th 8 a.m
2021 here's a question you can answer with your thumbs thumbs up if you saw a safety video today [Music] [Music]
today's tour will focus on active volcanoes the first part of our flight and then the older volcanoes on the second part of our flight [Music] anybody else celebrating anything honeymoon maybe 10-year anniversary oh okay the ring's still shiny had you had to shine it up for the anniversary awesome
congratulations you guys have kids no no okay where's home for you too [Applause] oh yeah you work for nasa no i work for quite safety oh you do yeah we simulate this aircraft yeah looking to get into that uh we were gonna go
pre-covered and then cove it happened it was we were months away from coming out to see her abby how about you what do you do [Music] that's a hard profession right now yeah very hard it's probably a well-deserved vacation i think so by the way you can see the two different
types of lava here really clearly uh kind of a smooth and silvery pahoehoe lava with some lava tubes those holes that you see there in the ground and then the rough texture darker colored lava is called so whether it's it's got to be one or the other there's only two types of lava in hawaii
and what we're looking at right now is from the top down several different vintages different years of lava flow the darkest black ones have oxidized the least and so those are the most recent these are from 1984. that's the last big eruption last eruption period of mauna loa and not the final
[Music] we're not going to kill away today folks there was a channel here you can still see where it was but it filled in okay let me get turned around and make some radio calls and then we'll we'll discuss our options you can all see why probably we can't proceed any further
here it's just basically a blanket of white [Music] the big island of hawaii has five volcanoes with the most active being
kilauea but as you heard due to the cloud cover we had to change flight plans and instead we flew over walalai all right so we are approaching a very very famous lava flow and this is the top of it think of this like a zipper on
the side of the mountain it unzips and then lava starts coming out it starts basically shooting out uh somewhere you know could be in the neighborhood of hundreds of feet so it's called a fissure and this is a line of fissures and you can see the largest one off the right we go back to 2018 here on the big
island we had fissures in the middle of a neighborhood you might have seen that on tv it looks just like this that is like a carbon copy of fissure number eight [Music] this is a sinkhole so this is lava suddenly leaving an area and the ground collapsing versus lava
gathering an area and pushing vertical to build a structure [Music] so that's a sinkhole uh right behind it you can see if you look all the way down to the south there you can see all of these line up here and then there's a little bit of a curve climbing up here to the
summit but for the most part these wrist cells are pretty straight now remember it's only been 1801 since the eruption here and it was off the north side those lava flows went all the way to the ocean this is very active 200 years is not that long for
a nap those little solar panels are they using that to measure like for measuring equipment yep exactly seismographs tilt meters lasers gas sensors there's going to be different equipment depending on where in the life cycle the volcano is the stuff i just listed is actually probably more around the summit of
kilauea especially gas there that's a big indicator of what might be happening if suddenly the volume of gas starts increasing so they keep really tight tabs on that but yeah uh that's exactly what you saw back there and i think there's another one right around here somewhere the one that we're really looking at
here is seismic information when there's a certain pattern of earthquakes and a certain intensity of earthquakes that tells us get in a helicopter with infrared and fly around and find the lava find the magma chamber and see where it's moving because an eruption is probably about to
occur [Music] okay we're coming right towards the summit so we're we're traveling up up the arterial and right to the top of the conduit or artery of the volcano now this is going to prove a pretty awesome view [Music]
like another planet up here [Music] [Applause] [Music]
[Music] so [Music]
this is a pretty interesting little section of the flow you can see the inside of the flow is the pahoehoe the smooth one and then just on the exterior of the same flow is an ah flow this is one of those very complex fluid dynamic principles that i don't totally understand but you could
basically have the pahoehoe become ah not the other way around and so that's what happened here in the 1859 flow it's not uncommon for that to happen but somehow like just the right amount of temperature it reaches the right amount of temperature and then well you have it they're both about 2 000 degrees
but remember that pahoehoe can travel 55 miles an hour so real different behavior than the ah which rolls down the hill like a pile of gravel that's only a couple hundred degrees that determines the difference so what we're going to do now is transition kind of across here to the
north northeast and then make our way out towards the valleys and out to the windward side now watch the transition as we go from dry leeward over to windward it's super dramatic and the weather is perfect over there i'm going to be able to show you guys everything
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[Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music]
[Music] you guys ready to fall up in the meadow
[Music] oh my god this is awesome [Music] this is the apple tv screensaver yeah i can't believe this is crazy it's like jurassic park or something oh my gosh
[Music]
[Music] [Music]
heading back [Music] it's awesome it's so cool [Music] right we are ready to rock we'll climb up to the east here and then reverse back to the west watch again uh when we head back over the mountain how it goes from all this west green back to the desert so very suddenly
[Music]
this was an absolute bucket list experience and we are so grateful that we were able to experience it i 100 recommend blue hawaiian and would fly with them again in a heartbeat and hopefully soon [Music]
after our amazing flight we headed back to our resort for some lunch we're on our way to lunch and we thought we'd stop and look at the dolphins it's sad but they're still super cute who knows i'm sure maybe these have been rescued or something [Music]
we just took a huge bite and said i'm having such a great time it's all about the food [Music]
on our next video we experience our first luau [Music] you
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